Antipode – Chapter 18

Antipode is a true account of my experiences while doing research in Madagascar from 1993 – 1999; it was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2001. Here is where we started—with the Introduction. And here are all of the chapters posted thus far.

Part III

A year and a half later, Madagascar beckoned again. I had not gone back the following rainy season, choosing instead to live in Panama with Bret for a few months, where he was conducting his own dissertation research on tent-making bats. At the time, before the U.S. turned the Canal back to Panama, the country was an odd mix of first and third world. Most of the trappings of the U.S. were for sale. We lived on a small island in the middle of the Panama Canal, a research institute run by the Smithsonian, which bore almost no resemblance to the small island I lived on when in Madagascar. Here researchers from all over the world gathered to study ecology and evolution, and the facilities reflected the prominence of this island in tropical biology research. Air-conditioned labs, modern sleeping quarters and bathrooms, a cafeteria open all night, public computers with an Email server, and frequent, reliable boat service to the mainland left one with the impression of a well-oiled machine. Nothing in Madagascar had ever evoked such an image for me. In Jamaica, once, a friend of Bret’s, upon being discovered greasing his bike chain with coconut oil, advised Bret that “the wrong lubricant is better than no lubricant.” Such practical wisdom serves people with limited access to resources well, valuable in Jamaica or Panama. But in Madagascar, there is rarely a choice. What do you do when there’s no lubricant at all?

Bret returned from Panama after 18 months, just in time for us to get married, celebrate our nuptials in Turkey, then spend a few months in the U.S. before heading back to Madagascar. I was enjoying the comforts of being home, with our cats and our stuff, but I knew I always appreciated them even more after I had tweaked my universe by living in a different world for a while. I began the months of paperwork, procuring equipment, making travel arrangements, and packing before finally going to the field. As I assessed what I had learned the previous season, and what I hoped to discover on this one, I realized ...